What the Bards Don't Sing
by The-Elvhen-Vagabond
Summary: A reprise of the iconic 'Arl of Redcliffe' quest. When a curse descends on Redcliffe Castle in 9:30 Dragon, a ruthless ranger strikes a deal with a chivalrous lord to survive- though it's one that will haunt them both in the coming years. Where natural boundaries are pushed, there is never a small price to pay.
1. Prologue: The Instigator

**Prologue: The Instigator**

30th Solis, year 9:30 Dragon

Black wasn't a color that suited the queen. _Though at least she waived on wearing the veil today,_ he thought. _Otherwise, this might start to look like an execution._

"I, your daughter, Queen Anora, hereby swear to be faithful to the crown in matters of life, limb, and earthly honor. Never shall I bear arms against you or conspire against your words, but instead strive to accept your counsel as my own and protect your person, as much as you shall protect mine as my regent."

On the royal terrace, she knelt at the feet of a grizzled man in full armor, shrunk to the height of a child again.

"The throne of Calenhad Theirin is yours, my father, until my rightful heir comes of age. This I swear in the sight of the Maker."

A moment of pregnant silence. But at last the queen rose: ponderously, like an upwell of ink, that famous grace now weighed down with fifteen pounds of pitch-black sarcenet and brocade. Soundlessly, she stepped aside; the Grand Cleric lifted her hand in benediction, urging all in attendance to rise. She was still wending through the third of his titles when the new bearer of the crown strode past her, his gravelly voice rolling to the corners of the hall with the certainty of a landslide.

"And you honor me with your trust, my queen. Just as I've sworn to Maric to see this nation safe, I swear to you again that it will remain so within our lifetime."

The regent didn't so much as glance at his daughter. His gray eyes were riveted instead to the bevy of banns and arls gathered on the floor of the Landsmeet chamber: half uncurling from their obeisances, the rest stiff-backed.

"Yours is a loss that doesn't have an equal in this room. But every soul here knows it's a betrayal with precedent."

That hardboiled gaze swept over him, lingered for a beat, then moved on. He kept his own expression just as closed.

"Two hundred years ago, the Grey Wardens led a campaign to oust King Arland from the throne. A campaign that saw their stronghold besieged and the remnants of their order banished from our borders. But it seems their malice can survive even the centuries."

Now the regent paced, plate and mail clanging empathically into the silence. Late summer light sliced against the steel diamonds on his crown. Eyes followed.

"King Cailan believed their stories of a building Blight. He trusted in their promises of a glorious victory against an archdemon, and on their counsel swore to open our borders once again to the chevaliers. He failed to see what lay behind the lofty legends, or what was written on our land in spite and blood over the ages. Now the Wardens have succeeded in fulfilling their old vengeance at Ostagar. The vaunted battle against the 'Fifth Blight' was a trap. Maric's son… has fallen."

A tactical hush; a crow cawed in the rafters. Someone in the corner failed to stifle a fidget, leather soles rasping loud over the flagstones. He willed his hands to unclench.

"Yet I still stand before you today." The regent stopped pacing, pauldrons squaring with a clank of steel. "And with me stands the Shield of Maric and all the forces of Gwaren. The Wardens may have perished in the teeth of their own trap, but they've set in motion a crisis that threatens our borders from west and south. And yet they _will_ fail again- that, I swear."

Another pause; no applause came. The regent motioned to the chancellor at the back of the balcony. For the first time in several moments, the queen moved: a single contraction of her mouth as a scroll alighted in her father's hand.

"Henceforth, we must rally every able-bodied Fereldan to the defense of their homeland before summer's end. Just as we had when we drove out the Orlesians, and again when we banished the Wardens' legions."

Next to him at the bottom of the hall, Arl Wulff crossed his arms and muttered into his beard: " _What_ able-bodied Fereldans? Ostagar took the lot of them, daft man." An absurdly-quiet remark from such a massive man.

Gold-edged paper flashed between the regent's gauntlets, his expression close to granite as he read out the first decrees.

"All freeholders who still owe annual service to their lords _must_ join the army: a minimum of one man or woman from each household. Every man- and woman-at-arms of good family is obliged to pledge themselves to the coming campaign, whereas those too old or infirm must send substitutes, or monetary compensation to furnish new soldiers. In addition-" he suddenly lowered the scroll, returning the full force of his stare to his audience- "I expect each of you to meet an allotment of soldiers for this endeavor. We must rebuild what was lost at Ostagar, and _quickly_."

A litany of numbers followed; the man wasn't even glancing at the ordinance now, as though quoting from memory.

"For lords with incomes exceeding one hundred sovereigns a year, debts withstanding: eighty mounted troops. Below that, but exceeding fifty sovereigns a year: forty mounted troops. Beneath that, but exceeding twenty-five sovereigns: twenty mounted troops. I expect twice those numbers for your knights' retainers. And again for pike-men."

Each sum dropped onto the Bannorn with the impact of a roofing tile: raising a ripple of low murmurs, protests half-swallowed as neighbors turned to shoot questions at one another. Forty-odd cloaks rustled, dropping over purses and gilt psalters. An older bann decided to sit down, and ended partway between his valet's catch and the carpet.

Wulff didn't bother whisper now. "Well. We'll be seeing a riot in about thirty more counts. Daft bugger."

"'Daft' doesn't describe it. But thank you for the other part."

The regent didn't seem to hear. "For those with annual incomes below that final margin, other means of contribution will be devised. But in all cases, proofs of income _will_ be validated by the capital's comptroller and the palace treasurer- _no exceptions_." He rolled up the token scroll, sliding new steel into his address. "Whoever fails to comply will face swift justice from the Crown. As ordained in times of war."

Now the floor erupted with pitched whispers, whipping up like sea-foam, the tail-ends of oaths slipping from the youngest voices. A few dared to look at the balcony. The queen's mouth flinched, retreated to a frown; her hand rose towards the stocky marshal, readying him.

At last, he murmured to his neighbor, "Would you excuse me for a moment?"

"Odd time to look for the _privy_ , man-" Wulff did a double-take. "Hey, where are you going? _Hey_."

But he was already weaving to the front of the crowd, stepping carefully onto what free floor he could find. While the soles of the others were dressed in satin and calfskin, his were in solid steel.

The regent's voice rose over the hubbub. "… _Understand_ that the losses at Ostagar were _not_ insignificant. Yet still lurking west and south are those poised to take advantage of our weakened state if we let them."

Without turning, he shoved the scroll back to the chancellor; the man almost fumbled the catch. The regent continued, tempering some of the steel on his tongue. "My lords and ladies, we must defeat this darkspawn incursion. But we must do so sensibly, and without hesitation; this is only the first of many battles to seize our country again."

"Your lordship, if I might speak?"

The regent abruptly broke off, frowned once more, and squinted over the banister.

He pulled to a stop right below the terrace. There, he let those eyes search his face one more time, light by a fraction, flick to his mail, then scowl anew. The hall behind him hushed.

 _Yes, you scarcely remember me, do you? Never imagined that one day, I might walk into this hall to speak. But 'the Hero of River Dane' is an excuse three decades too old to explain why you're here. It's past time someone said it._

The sudden silence piled onto his shoulders. He mustered a breath, then pressed his voice smooth: "Ostagar, without doubt, was a tragedy. It galls us all to hear our king was betrayed on the field."

A rolling chorus of agreement. A voice he didn't recognize piped up, "Indeed."

"Yet instead of a Grey Warden, we find only you returning to Denerim, Loghain Mac Tir. Here, you have declared yourself Queen Anora's regent, and claim we must unite under your banner for our own good."

No chorus this time. Loghain compressed a glare. _Good._

"For the sake of those who didn't witness Ostagar, who weren't able to stand at our king's side when he fell, enlighten us: why withdraw your troops from the field? It seems most…"

Two beats. Then he left the word fall: "…Fortuitous."

A collective shout rose from the back of the hall, tumbling and undulating through the crowd until it broke over his back below the promenade: the sounds of outrage, disbelief, and shock lapping high to the ceiling. The crows in the rafters scattered; black feathers rained down.

The marshal roared for order, banging his steel-plated staff onto the flagstones of the balcony. The queen seemed frozen. Her father strode suddenly to the banister; the first row of the Bannorn flinched right, left, and aft of him.

" _Everything_ I have done has been to secure the safety and sovereign rights of our nation, where our king could _not_." His reply beat like a smithy hammer, mimed by the cut of his hand. "I have not shirked my duty to the throne, and neither…" his voice projected over the whole hall, "…will any of you!"

"What do you mean by that, Mac Tir?!" Wulff bellowed from the back. The cork came loose; voices riled and followed.

"What happened down south? What happened to all those men and women we sent?"

"You've the gall to decide _our_ duties, cottar's son?!"

"It's the Theirin line we follow, not yours!" he snapped back at the balcony, full anger bristling his tongue. "The Bannorn will not bow to you simply because you demand it!"

Loghain's gauntlet struck the railing with a splintering crack; the first row of the Bannorn jumped again.

" _Understand this,_ " the new king thundered from overhead, "I will brook no threat to this nation. From you-" those gimlet eyes bore into him, then lifted- "or anyone!"

A curt gesture over the shoulder; his guards followed him away from the terrace. The chancellor glanced at the stupefied Grand Cleric, then dropped in pursuit.

Above them, the crows were long-gone, feathers still spinning in the amber-lit air.

The marshal pounded his staff four more times, punctuating the rabble on the floor, then shook his head and gestured to the doormen; reluctantly, they peeled open the exit. Half the lords broke away, darting for the doors and their horses in the courtyard. The rest washed together under the balcony, the air below thick with jeweled hands and stabbing fingers as they hollered to the queen left behind.

 _It's beyond a riot, Gallagher; it's madness._ He pressed one gauntlet over his eyes, grimacing, the cold steel a welcome shock against his forehead. Already his name was being pelted at his back from voices friendly, unfriendly, and unknown; he answered by turning on his heel and heading for the exit.

But one petition made him start in mid-step. "Bann Teagan Guerrin, please!"

He turned again. The queen's hand was extended his way, lacquered black in its glove; her jet rosary swung from her throat as she reached from the balustrade like a wooden siren. He shook his head.

"Your Majesty- your father risks _civil war!_ " _Yet you stood mute this entire time._ "You don't mean to tell us you support this stunt? If Eamon were here-"

From one story above, that sculpted pose bent; the queen's glove clutched the cracked banister. "Bann Teagan, I beg you to understand." Her gaze was veiled. "My father is only doing what is best at this time."

 _Could you say the same to Cailan when you meet him?_ "Did he also do what was best for your husband, your Majesty?"

The widow's mask split with a full flinch. Teagan kept his back unbowed and his apology in the grave as he turned for the doors one last time.


	2. Chapter 1: The Funeral Mass

**Chapter 1: The Funeral Mass**

1st Matrinalis, year 9:30 Dragon. All Soul's Day.

"Blessed art thou who exists in the sight of the Maker. Blessed art thou who seeks His forgiveness…"

The Chant sluiced over him from a choir four dozen strong as he approached the altar. Incense and sweet myrrh hazed the air over the urn, shrouded from all eyes by a black velvet pall emblazoned with a sunburst. Behind it stood the portrait of the deceased at his coronation: lantern-jawed, wheat-haired, and criminally-handsome, frozen at the cusp of manhood. Propped on the altar, the painting nearly passed his height. Teagan lowered his head and said nothing, unswaddling the tribute in his arms.

"…Blessed art the penitents who seek His return…"

From one side of the altar, the queen arched an eyebrow at his gift: a battered crossbow, half-split to the butt of its stock, the steel lathe curling deep on one side like a fishing hook.

He offered a threadbare smile. "It's a long story, Your Majesty. But Cailan valued this." No comment came as he laid the maimed crossbow to rest before the urn. The loose bowstring drooped across a gold-leafed prayer book studded with garnets and a gilded hatchment of the Theirin family: two long-tailed mabari balancing an antique crown.

"…Blessed is the Prophetess, His Bride, sacrificed to the holy flame…"

It had been eight years since Cailan asked him to keep this bow safe in Rainesfere's keep. 'Because Anora wouldn't understand the story even if it ends up in a history scroll someday,' the young man had laughed. 'If she's feeling generous, she might smuggle this poor thing out and have someone hammer it straight. And then where will I be when I hunt in those blasted highlands you call home, Uncle?'

On that unforgettable jaunt at the foot of the Frostbacks, Teagan was a dozen yards behind the then-prince when he tried to cut across a humped, tussocky rise to fell the stag first. Halfway down, the royal stallion suddenly swerved before a fox hole, struck the turf on its knees, and catapulted his nephew crosswise off the saddle and past the hairpin shoulder of the hill. A quarter-hour later, Teagan and their retinue found him at the bottom of the gulch: dazed and rolled in dirt, but completely unhurt. His crossbow, on the other hand, was crumpled into fishing tackle for the whale-shark.

'I fall off horses; that's what I do too,' Cailan had quipped. 'But this-' he punched the sky with the warped bow, laughing- 'this faithful thing swapped fates with me and took the landing that would have broken my neck; I owe it my life.'

 _And you never again hunted in Rainesfere without two bows: one you could shoot with, and this one slung across your back like a holy relic. After eight years, I still can't tell if you only enjoyed your story, or believed it._

His arms moved in a cross under that painted smile. _Even if the Maker's side is a less eventful place, my nephew, you might want this again._

"…May the Chant reach His ears and tell Him of our contrition."

From the other end of the altar, the Grand Cleric brought the ritual candle to him: a beeswax figurine stained scarlet, whittled into a woman bound to the stake. Waxy tears had already claimed her nose and eyes. "On your leave, my lord."

 _It will take more than a candle to burn off my mistakes, Your Grace._ But on rote, he twisted off his signet ring and bared his right hand. _Much less to say about the man ahead of me in the line._

He remembered the royal vanguard marching south, the Imperial Highway clogged with pikes and baggage trains. Suddenly, it was a teenager's dirt-smeared face in front of him again, flaxen hair tangled with turf; a high, infectious laugh whipped away under a sky threatening to storm. His chest constricted; his palm dropped low over the candleflame, skin blistering at once

"The flesh is weak, but the soul is everlasting." In the lull of the choir, the Grand Cleric's voice sounded all but dead, brittle from the years. "So was our Prophet's final revelation as She returned pure to Her Maker's side. And so shall it be yours."

His seared hand retracted, clenched; a ball of fire smoldered inside his fist. "…So let it be." Teagan managed a single-degree nod and turned away from his nephew's urn, plunging his hand into the cistern an initiate hurried his way. Incense cloyed his nose. He brought his eyes away from the sister's.

Entrenched in the first pew right of the nave was the queen's father, now in black this morning. The regent brusquely flexed a suede glove over his right hand; then he caught the bann's eyes. For a moment, there was no expression. And then that thick-knuckled hand folded in, slowly, fingers meeting like creases in a rock; Loghain held his stare.

Teagan returned it. _There is no greater miracle than getting along with your in-laws._ Carefully, he withdrew his hand from the cistern, bowed to the silent queen, and descended from the dais. Flanking the path to the urn was a sextet of knights: six suits of burnished steel frozen at attention, halberds stiff against their shoulders.

Three steps. Then something lodged in the crook of his ankle.

A dizzying lurch; his foot missed the next step. Teagan stumbled hard off the dais, straight into the next mourner in line. The man didn't try to catch him; his shoulder stabbed into the corner of an enameled knife-box, which the other guest brought up deftly like a shield.

"Mind yourself, Guerrin," Howe remarked airily, as he landed on the chapel floor.

The choir faltered, the sound of his fall tumbling headlong down the nave. A reel of gasps rolled back up. Clerics scurried forward. The Amaranthine lord fixed his eyes to the ceiling like it was First Day, and there was a drunk sprawled next to him at Mass.

Teagan's ears burned to their roots as his hands found the sable carpet and pushed the rest of him upright, shoulder smarting.

"It's 'Teryn' Howe this time, isn't it?" the bann of Rainesfere returned, dusting off his sleeve. He turned and met a pair of disinterested eyes, dark as witch-hazel.

"You catch on quickly, after being gone from court so long." A droll nod at the apse. "Now. If I'm not keeping you…?"

Another beat. The choir remained silent. Teagan forced a breath through his nose, and took a precise step to the side. "…You have my apologies. Don't let me keep you from paying your respects."

Howe didn't reply, ascending the dais with a clinical nod at the Grand Cleric. Across from her, the queen's mouth had stitched into a frown. One of the knights- the nearest on his left- rotated his halberd by a fraction, once again lining up its blade with its partner opposite. He didn't glance at Teagan.

Now he realized exactly where he was standing, just moments ago. _Between Loghain and Howe, who was the one who jerked you like a puppet from the line? And how much of that was for the queen to see?_

The chanters deemed it safe to start up again: a wordless harmony spun out of three different octaves ricocheted across the ceiling, shivering the rose-stained glass glazing the eastern window.

Down the center of the nave, a line of decorated mourners trudged on: the Bannorn; the scions of the lords still missing after Ostagar; their nearest cousins in the clergy and law. They inched forward as one, out of the belly of the cathedral lit by the Great Brazier, through the rue bower framing the double-doors, and into this final hall dimmed like a cavern: its windows shrouded with black crepe, walls darkened with damask. Five hundred candles burned from candelabras and age-blackened chandeliers, each bearing the Theirin family's escutcheon. Eyes slipped from the matching crest on the chain around Teagan's neck, twined with the badge of the Guerrin family.

A chaste cough sounded by his shoulder. "Um… if you're well, milord." Behind him hovered a young sister, hands knitting together under her sleeves, her green eyes in permanent wince. She didn't look older than sixteen.

The sight of her punctured the anger left in him. Teagan repressed a sigh, and gestured. "I'll manage, thank you," he said, without much feeling.

"I hope so. We'll be holding a full Mass today."

 _And I'll be here for all of it. Until nightfall today, and the next two days after. Denerim needs a chance to see Cailan's urn in state._ The king's uncle resisted the urge to rub his shoulder. _But Maker forgive me- and Cailan as well-, I might let a demon in for Remembrance if it turns this crowd out. I haven't seen so many wolves in a building since 'Dane and the Werewolf' played at court._

* * *

The Guerrins' bench groaned and bit into his back, as it did every year for the past two decades as he settled himself in. Mechanically, Teagan spun his ring back on, inspecting the braised pink flesh in his right palm. A web of prickling pain swelled and shrank as his hand flexed.

Up ahead, Howe withdrew his hand from nine inches above the ritual flame. Arl Bryland stepped to the altar next, saluting portrait, urn, and widow. Teagan's hand contracted again.

The pot was empty- they all knew it. Not even a heart was saved from the darkspawn on the field.

News of Ostagar was only just trickling into Denerim in fits and starts: like a plague ferried in by refugees and survivors, and discussed about as willingly. But the bare facts were damning. The Korcari Wilds overrun and the earth said to be blackening; Cailan and most of the army massacred; the Grey Wardens dust again; the field tactician and reigning regent returning with his own division fully-intact, claiming treachery that also removed the brazen culprits. A brother in the city already claimed it as proof of the Maker's justice- Teagan found his pamphlet in his squire's hands this morning.

 _If Loghain returned with even half a legion and claimed a lost attempt, we might be willing to pardon him. But toss in that tripe about the Wardens, then blame Cailan for risking all, and what we have left is no survivor. Only a desperate man._

His ring eddied again around his finger, the family crest flashing into and out of his sight. _Eamon will shudder to wonder when his old comrade crossed that border: from hero to usurper._

A bronze plate stamped with the Maker's Eye joined the tributes on the altar. Four hundred more feet shuffled along the carpet. Far in the courtyard, a mourner started to wail, her professional shrieks ricocheting through the nave by freak of acoustics.

The sisters in the chancel rallied: "But when they took a single step toward the empty throne, a great voice cried out, shaking the very foundations of Heaven and earth…"

From the opposite wall, the brothers rumbled: "…And so is the Golden City blackened with each step you take in My hall. Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting. You have brought Sin to Heaven, and doom upon all the world…"

 _Maker's breath: they threw in the Threnodies after all._ Teagan winced. _As if we need another lesson on what the Blight is._ He remembered himself, and rose quickly to that old feint: hands clasped before him and head hung low, expression dropping out of sight of the first initiate who stared his way. Under the verse, the unseen mourner screamed at the heavens.

"…Violently were they cast down, for no mortal may walk bodily in the realm of dreams…."

'Would you fault me for dreaming of peace, Uncle?' Four months ago, a man in the prime of his life stood on the battlements of Rainesfere's keep. Pine boughs slapped the foot of the castle as the wind woke. In the hazy glen, druffalo-teams fileted the earth, fenced in by rows of flaming yellow gorse. 'It's no disrespect to my father to work with Orlesians in quelling the Blight.' Cailan's chin hung an inch higher than its normal altitude, as though they were back in the Landsmeet chamber. 'If anything, I'm honoring his memory: he brought the Grey Wardens back to Ferelden; he of all people knew what a menace the darkspawn could be, to all nations, across all borders. And I like to think he dreamed of a time past the Occupation: when the Orlesians wouldn't remain kicked yoke-masters sore from their loss, but neighbors who'd respect us as equals.' The king's arming sword tilted to the sun, for effect, glacial light glancing off its runes. His chuckle belonged to the same prince who cartwheeled off his horse and into a gulley. 'And respect us they will, when they watch me fell an Old God with my father's sword. You're sure you want to miss out on the fun this season?'

 _So I did. Rainesfere didn't have an heir yet if the worst happened to me. You hadn't insisted._

When he pointed out then how the Free Marches were only two weeks by sea from Gwaren, his nephew's reply came flip and decided: 'Tempting- if anyone knows how the Marchers really work, it's you, _Ritter der blauen Rosen_. They're a force if they're _all_ champing at the bit to send us another Blight-quelling Champion. But you'll need weeks to rope the lords into one hall for talks, whereas Orlais is quite ready to march with us this summer. And Empress Celene gets mortally-offended if she doesn't receive an invitation.' Cailan's next answer had carried slightly less laugh: 'You're saying I should throw Uncle Eamon into Loghain's fire-breath, right after beating his cold? No, Redcliffe may join us south only when absolutely ready. The teryn is _my_ responsibility; he'll remember who's king and stop with his apoplexies every time he hears 'chevaliers'.' Finally, a measured, sidelong squint: 'So. Did he bring you onboard to tell me to stay off the frontlines too?'

 _Yes. Perhaps all it would have taken was one more person you trusted._

His comeback on that final morning returned to him; damp pines and the velvet sweetness of gorse vied with incense. 'You know Eamon never has trouble speaking for himself; I'm only here to provide the impolitic commentary. Now, what do you say to heading down to the moor once this fog lifts? I'll wager you're going to miss the next two hare seasons while you're saving Thedas.'

Teagan opened his eyes again to a silent portrait and a cathedral in song. Curls of smoke thinned from taper and candlestick, smogging the ceiling. A ring of initiates touched up wicks that spat and hissed to silence, hovering like rhubarb-colored moths in their flaring sleeves.

The mourner in the courtyard was taking a breather. The queue crawled interminably; the Grand Cleric settled on nodding at the next hands passing over the ritual flame. On the altar, someone dropped a sprig of Prophet's Laurel over Cailan's crossbow, blood-red berries spilling over broken wood.

"…Deep into the earth they fled, away from the Light. In Darkness eternal they searched for those who had goaded them on…"

 _That morning, you may or may not have listened to what I had to say. But it's my own sin that for the past five years after you took the throne, I never lifted a hand to protect you._ The band of his signet ring cut hard between his fingers as they knitted together. _If you'll permit me now, I_ will _fulfill the duty I owed you years ago. The entire Guerrin family will stand in the coming Landsmeets. The regent will know what justice is. The truth behind Ostagar will be known._

The empty spaces right and left of him pressed into his shoulders. _And you will be remembered for what you attempted to do. Not for how you fell._

"…Until at last, they found their prize. Their god, their betrayer: the sleeping dragon Dumat..."

Satin rustled from behind, close by, then rounded the left-hand corner of his pew. Teagan blinked twice.

At the corner of his eye, a rangy, dark-eyed woman slipped between barricade and bench, crossing the next twelve paces to stand at his elbow. Her black plait bobbed as she offered a nod. Then her hands folded one over the other in prayer, shoulders and back militant-straight under the mantle of her plain sable dress.

It took him another moment to place her as Ser Cauthrien- Loghain's lieutenant and commander of the Shield of Maric- only missing her usual red-steel mail.

"Your brother is doing well, Bann Teagan?" the knight finally whispered.

"We have hopes that he'll recover. But will you oblige to tell me why you're here, my lady?" His head remained bowed, question coiled low under the prismatic verse ringing from north and south. Like a warning, his shoulder throbbed again.

"On the queen's behalf, my lord." Cauthrien's lips barely moved. "She urges you to reconsider your stance."

"…Their taint twisted even the false-god. And the Whisperer awoke at last, in pain and horror…"

 _So that's why you were plucked out of the escort for Cailan's urn._ "Dare I ask which?"

She sidestepped the bait. "I was at Ostagar as well; I saw the might of the horde firsthand. And I agree with you in that we can't risk a civil war in this dire time."

"Was seeing the darkspawn's might what also convinced you to leave our king to die?" The rosemary water in her hair pricked his nostrils. "If _that'_ s your way of averting civil war, Cauthrien, you'd better say a prayer for your diplomat's career."

"…And led them to wreak havoc upon all the nations of the world: the First Blight." The canticle closed to a many-tiered hum, to a hush, and to silence. Far in the courtyard, a second mourner joined the first; a fresh howl half-an-octave lower rattled down the cathedral.

Cauthrien's scar-crossed hands dropped on the barricade, and gripped; she looked neither left nor right as her voice narrowed. "Loghain made the right call: there was no saving Cailan from the horde, after he was goaded into such a vulnerable position by the Wardens. Otherwise, _everyone_ would have perished that night, and where would this country be with neither Cailan _nor_ Loghain?"

"Well to start-" Teagan kept his whisper as casual as frostbite- "we wouldn't have a disingenuous deserter on the throne."

"Your mouth never did you any credit."

"My dear lady, if you want to start a row here, you'll receive one." He bowed himself back to his seat.

By the altar, the Grand Cleric stooped with arthritic slowness for a thirteen-year-old bann. "The flesh is weak, but the soul is everlasting. So was our Prophet's final revelation as She returned pure to Her…"

"I am here-" the soldier's hiss was fit to grind millet between syllables- "at the bequest of my queen to convince you to act _sensibly._ " The pew groaned as she dropped in alongside him; black satin whipped his knee. "She spoke as she was obliged to during the coronation, but the whole country knows Cailan left no heir. Loghain is now our only option for unity; inciting a war against him would doom Ferelden at this time."

"Perhaps he should have asked you to pen his speech yesterday."

"My liege would never have said those words if _you_ hadn't minded your _tongue_." Her nostrils were dilating now; Teagan didn't dare check the pews behind them. "It was a delicate decree, but a necessary one; the long and short of it is that we need more soldiers. He keeps no other intention but to save Ferelden. While all you were looking to do was raise a riot."

Wulff did a double-take from the queue; Teagan smiled flatly in his direction. "And that was less reasonable? Asking for a reason to trust the man who sacrificed his own liege's son?"

"What will satisfy you? Anointment? A branding on the square for all survivors? Maric is still alive in my lord's memory; that decision on the field wasn't one he made lightly." Cauthrien stared down a passing brother; the monk doubled his pace past the women's choir.

' _Lightly'? If that's the worst you can put it, the branding doesn't sound too bad._ Teagan counted two breaths as he stared straight at the altar. "Your loyalty is commendable, Cauthrien- that much I can say. But will he be as honest on why his daughter can't reign alone? He doesn't strike me as a doting father."

"Anora is a capable administrator, but even she can err." The knight pinched a rue petal off her skirt, kneading it slowly between her fingers. "Which she did by letting Cailan run rogue. Even humoring his bid to recruit the Orlesian Wardens and chevaliers, with the barest swap of curtseys at the border."

Teagan's next retort caught and died in his throat.

 _It was the Orlesians- it was only ever about keeping the Orlesian forces from joining the field and returning to Ferelden. Ostagar was Loghain's chance to rescind Cailan's decree._

The steel spurs on the regent's crown flashed in his memory; the thunder that followed as he declared their borders west and south under jeopardy.

 _Would it have come to this if I convinced Cailan to petition the Free Marches instead? To send me there as an envoy before the campaign began?_

 _'Tempting- if anyone knows how the Marchers really work, it's you,_ Ritter der blauen Rosen….'

He kept his back poker-straight. _Eleven cities and their armies. Two weeks by sea from Kirkwall to Gwaren. Ten days from there to Ostagar, on forced march._ Silently, his burnt hand came to rest on the edge of the pew past his knee, gripping the wood with bloodless fingers. _It could have been done._

The choir hummed to life, time-honored guilt stretching the lyrics to crystalline gauze: "And as the black clouds came upon them, they looked on what pride had wrought, and despaired…"

Cauthrien tasted his silence. "You're neither a self-serving man nor a fool. So think carefully, Bann Teagan, on how you could best serve the nation in this tenuous time. Cailan sits at the Maker's side today. While our queen stands behind a hero who faced the 'spawn, and proved twice-over that he would give everything for his homeland." Her hands folded again on her lap. "Which is more than you ever did in your lifetime."

"…The work of man and woman, by hubris of their making. Their sorrow a blight unbearable…"

His lungs burned, but he trained his gaze just above the barricade, the grain polished to a bronze glaze from hundreds of sleeves.

On the altar, gold glinted under a wilting sun: a mabari's gilded foot poked through the funeral pall, bracing the base of his nephew's urn.

"…Those who had sought to claim Heaven by violence destroyed it. What was golden and pure…"

"We're at an impasse then, Cauthrien." His voice, when he discovered it again, rang distant to his own ears. His right hand seethed as his fingers released the pew. "But you and the queen have little to worry about in my case- I'm not important enough to guide this country into anarchy."

"…Turned black. Those who had once been mage-lords, the brightest of their age, were no longer men…"

"Rather, that honor belongs to your liege after he removed a king and flattened the Bannorn's rights. Why not ask the Hero of River Dane where he took his lessons in Orlesian statecraft?"

"…But monsters."

Teagan climbed to his feet, hands stiff at his sides. On cue, the choir droned to a multi-chord silence. Two hundred pairs of eyes magnetized his way. Bann Alfstanna on the dais bowed to the headless crimson candle, turned, and added another stare. The Grand Cleric's mouth was a half-moon of worry as her gaze flicked to him, to his left, and back.

 _There is no disturbance the Maker wouldn't grant, in time. Though only one sinner is getting turned out of Mass today._ He crossed himself, bowing one last time to the portrait crowning the head of the hall. _I'm sorry, Cailan. Yet again. But this isn't a place where you can be mourned._

Hairs rose as the wailers in the courtyard keened into the silence.

Teagan turned left, away from the queue. At once, he collided into an arm dressed in satin and hammered in a forge, locking crosswise between bench and barricade.

Cauthrien's glare seared into the woodgrain, her jaw welded shut as she whispered between her teeth. "Unlike some, I offer a fair warning, Bann Teagan. If you'll heed it. Slander Loghain before me again, take up arms against my lord and regent, and I _will_ take your head. Some of us still remember what duty is." Those dark eyes stabbed up at him. "If I were you, I wouldn't grow too bold at throwing stones from under Eamon's shadow- it's not as safe as you think."

Three beats. And she withdrew her arm: a lady in black once again, sitting ramrod straight at the head of the chapel.

Somewhere in the hall, a prayer book opened with a crack like pond ice. The queue unfroze and crept forward, eyes drifting to the new tableau at the Guerrins' bench. A templar retreated through the doors to silence the screamers on the square.

Under the wondering stares of Chantry and gentry, Teagan released a cold breath and stepped past the knight, spine straight, eyes averted as well. "I was never under that assumption, my lady."


	3. Chapter 2: The Heroes

**Chapter 2: The Heroes**

9th Matrinalis, year 9:30 Dragon

" _Well_ look here, lads— I think we've just been blessed."

At the back of the tavern, five men pushed aside their stools and stood. A low lantern spun on its chain, swinging greasy light over steel plate.

 _Yer god would've a funny sense of humor, He would._ She stopped in mid-stride, one hand braced on the base of her bow. By her waist, her courser snarled, marsh burrs bristling out of his ruff.

"Great. There goes our dinner." Her comrade winced for her. "I was in the mood for kidney pie too."

High in the loft, a fife fell with an off-key whimper as the tallest soldier crossed the dining-floor. His greatsword hung five feet past his shoulder. Two of his mates plucked their longbows from the wall.

"Over _three weeks_ rotting in this hamlet, asking around for a tattooed elf and a tow-headed soldier." His bass voice bludgeoned the rest of the bards into silence; she could almost hear the ale under his breath. "These blighters kept saying: 'there's no one coming up South who looks like that'. But now _here_ they are-!" Suddenly he stopped at the center of the floor, one arm cast wide; the patrons winced under the long shadows he flung out. "-Walking in for a pint. With a creamy-skinned doxy from the Wilds. The teryn won't believe it."

On her left, her second comrade chuckled darkly. "Oh, he won't believe a word you tell him as a ghost, my dear man." Her arms folded across her chest, tucking a spiked blackthorn staff to her side. The officer's eyes lingered.

This time she answered, her voice easing into the silence like a hand in a nettle patch. "Ye know what they say about wild women, my friend: don't tempt them if ye value yer honor. But all the same-" her hood slid back; she let one shoulder bow- "I take it yer teryn's not waitin' to buy some hides from us?"

With a slow flourish, she slung off her satchel bulging with deer skins, dropping it on the nearest table. The drinker there flinched, like the bag threatened to kick again. "Only the largest bucks from the Wilds, ser."

Loghain's officer spat; her left boot dodged. "You've got a lot gall, elf, to walk with your neck in one piece after you killed our king!"

"Wait, what?" Her colleague returned, confusion spiking his voice.

A minstrel peered past the banister, fingers cramped on her bagpipes. Mismatched stools squeaked in one chorus as customers snatched hats and tankards, scuttling away from the center of the floor.

"Ye have my condolences on yer King Cailan," she said, not meeting the look the bartender was giving her. "But I don't see how my compatriots an' I could have done _that_ deed, friend."

"My lord saw it all, _Warden._ " Now he was close enough for her to catch the red cobwebbing his eyes, the cloy of old blood in the bandage binding his ear. "Your Order led our friends, our captains, our _king_ to die in the darkspawns' jaws! You goaded him into that miserable charge; seduced him with _lies_ to stay on the frontlines as the entire vale was overrun! If it wasn't for Teryn Loghain, every one of us would have perished that night."

The other soldiers were shuffling sidelong across the room, like a fist opening. A pot-girl dropped her trencher and headed for the street; but another caught her by the elbow, fixing her to the floor.

"Again, my sympathies, ser-" her ears tallied the score of boots thumping into the loft, the weight of silence in the tavern- "yer king seems the valorous sort. But we were never even in that battle; none of us are soldiers."

"Then what in damnation's name was your face doing at Ostagar? The teryn himself remembers the three of you skulking around the king's camp." One finger stabbed forward, at the flame tattooed between her brows. "'A knife-eared bow-woman, with a black braid and a face decked like an Orlesian carpet.'" His hand turned left, threw itself open in disgust. "'A feckless man-boy. With hazel eyes and hair like a horse-brush.'" The man described offered a weak grin. "And a blighted wolf for a pet." That judging hand dropped, and stopped; her wolf watched it with razor-point interest.

"Not all of us have mabaris, friend; 'twould be a different story, otherwise."

The thrum in her wolf's throat swelled to a growl; the officer's hand had shaped a fist.

"I wouldn't move too quickly in front of him, ser; he's a huntin' hound." Her voice stiffened with warning. "If ye wish to know, we're just trappers ourselves; furriers in the winter. I suppose our mistake was pitchin' camp next to the Wardens at the fort; they placed a hefty order fer new harnesses an' saddles with the rain blowin' in."

"An' I've seen you make a pair of lovely shoes, too."

The men-at-arms swiveled; so did her group. By the hearth, a flame-haired nun rose to her feet. She offered the room a forgiving smile, deep sleeves closing over her hands as they clasped together. "My pardon. You might not remembaire me, but I remembaire _you_ passing through some weeks ago, following the baggage trains south." Her voice was dipped in wafer-honey, scented with Orlesian. "At first, I thought: a Dalish cutting shoes for human militia an' their wives? How odd."

She nodded sideways, eyes still on the nun. "Hence my flat-eared companion here- he makes sales easier."

A beat; then the man in question remembered to chuckle. "Right. Farmwives have a thing for the way I say: you want a longer blade to go with that sheath?"

"Spare us," threw in their friend.

The sister giggled obligingly. "Well, _I_ can see why you'd make a good sale." Now her blue eyes creased at their corners. "But today you are seeking refuge from the darkspawn too, yes? I only wish there was more room in Lothering for all of you, Maker's mercy."

An apple-sized pommel crashed into the bench next to them. A bard squawked; jugs and trenchers leapt, shivered in tight circles. " _Stow_ your goodwill where it's _deserved_ , Sister!" The officer gestured; one soldier grabbed the back of the nun's cassock.

Longbows creaked. Her party contracted like a piqued muscle, back falling against back.

"The Maker's mercy has its limits- these asps would feed us _all_ to the darkspawn if it serves them." Loghain's officer lifted his sword again; five feet of steel whistled, landing blade-up into his waiting hand; both gauntlets stiffened around the hilt. "Men—take the Grey Wardens into custody. Shut that sister up, and anyone else who gets in your way— we've got a hanging to attend in Denerim."

 _Fenedhis lasa._

With a shriek from the loft, the bag of skins roused, rose, and flew crosswise, into the bite of the greatsword as it fell. Loghain's officer cursed; his blade glanced off, pivoted to swing back in from the side. The satchel met it again, deer musk bursting from the rip in the hides.

The tavern erupted. Stools crashed; footsteps pounded up the stairs, into the kitchen, out the door; the barman dissolved under the counter. Her wolf surged forward, ripping into the officer's hauberk with a wrench of chain.

His henchman swept a hatchet back. But her comrade tossed his cloak; a templar-issue shield surfaced, smashing into the man's cheek.

" _-Holy Maker of men!"_

The barman's eyes bulged over the counter, staring across the room. She backed up, taking her satchel in both hands; she risked a glance left.

Silhouetted against the fire was the nun: one arm high, and pulling back a poniard. The soldier next to her clung to the mantel, sliding slowly earthward; blood slipped through the cracks of his fingers holding in his throat.

"Forgive me." The man hit the hearth; the sister bowed.

Loghain's officer kicked her wolf aside, and turned. His sword stilled; he choked on his oath.

 _Don't ask._ Without warning, she stepped forward; the bag of hides plowed into the officer's greatsword, keeled it aside; her right hand let go and shot up, ramming heel-first into his jaw.

A skull-rattling clack of teeth; a scream swallowed; the officer reeled back.

She dropped the bag and backpedaled. "Alistair! _Ma halani!_ " she yelled. "Da'renan- _ma garas mir assan!_ " Her recurved bow slung free, an arrow falling into hand; she fired at the first bowman across the room, just missing his shoulder.

This time, her mates caught the words. Her wolf raced across the floor, a long blur of fur and spittle ducking through benches. Alistair kicked his foe backwards, then turned to smash his shield into the officer's chest as he righted himself. Six feet of _shemlen_ ricocheted into the trestle table behind, upending it with a crash.

Her last comrade swept her staff forward, into the head of the hatchet-man as he swung at Alistair's back. The man swore, kettle-hat askew; her hand clutched his neck. Mulberry lips peaked in a smile. And then her hand lifted.

Suddenly the man jerked like a puppet, wire-stiff, and whirled away from the witch. Bottles rattled as he careened into the bar; the barman yelped from the other side.

 _Subtle, Morrigan,_ she thought, kicking a bench over. _Be subtle here._ An arrow thudded into the nicked table as she ducked behind it; her bow leapt over the rim, loosed its answer. _Be subtle enough._ But her eyes hardened as she spotted the nun, circling around the archers now firing at her wolf.

" _On me,_ you misbegotten whore-sons! We fight for the teryn and our king!"

Past the ruins of the trestle table, Loghain's officer twisted his blade around Alistair's mace, a seam of red running through his lips.

At the bar, Morrigan's staff seesawed across the axe-man's neck: his helmet gone, one hand braced on his head, crooking it backwards.

By the stairs to the loft, the nun whisked her blade down the archer's arm, then up, bisecting his throat. A wet rasp; a knee to the stomach; a soft, incongruous "Maker forgive you", as the second man fell.

Under a tallow-fogged lamp, the last archer grasped at her arrow springing from his chest, fumbling his shot. Da'renan reared, now taller than a man. Froth-flecked teeth folded around his neck.

The bards' loft was crammed with eyes now, opened wide and white at the fracas below.

Her mouth thinned. _Well. There's always a trick to makin' a good first impression._

A terse crack from the bar; a bubble of a gasp.

Her next arrow tensed on the officer's back as Alistair swung him around, mace connecting with a rippling smack of mail. But for a beat, she aimed left, past his shoulder; the Chantry sister had flipped her knife over, blood wicking off the hilt, palm bracing on the pommel as she flanked the last armsman.

 _Though it shouldn't be as easy as this._ _Never in my life have I seen ye, Sister. Here or in Ostagar._

Six feet of floor between her and the officer. The man's foot skidded through damp sawdust; he swore.

 _Which begs the question of whether we have_ five _traitors to the kingdom here, instead of four._

She considered, then released again. A muffled snap. Grouse feathers skimmed soft past her fingertips.

* * *

Loghain's officer was making a mess on the tabletop. But then again, they couldn't blame him; the last quarter-inch of his tongue was missing. She could still tease out the edges of his words as Alistair pinned him face-down on the rude planks: "…All right, all right, you've won! Put that away!"

This last part was addressed to her. But her dagger stayed deaf, poised against the seam of his open neck, one whisker-thin edge turned at right angles to his windpipe.

"Please." The nun had a linen wad ready in her fingers, stripped from her sleeve. "He knows now his mistake; all his friends have lost their lives to his rashness. There's nothing more you need to do to this man."

Her mouth remained still. But her nose pricked again with the smell of leaf rot, oakmoss, the dry dust of the crypt. "…Unfortunately, Sister," she said at last, "the lessons fer rashness aren't mine to teach. Sometimes, they simply are."

The sister flinched; she eyed the new spots on her robe and wondered at the source of her shock now.

"There's no fool like a proud fool, so my mother tells me," Morrigan added, plucking a splinter off her staff. "Or a drunk one. This man, strangely, qualifies as both. Kill him and be done with this; he has enough tongue left to use it."

Alistair sighed through his nose, saying nothing.

"If you came from Ostagar, as you said you did-" the sister's blue eyes tacked across their faces- "then you know more than any of us how much death has visited this country already. Why add to it? What's wrong with compassion at this time?"

 _Simple: you can't write up a bond fer it._ But the pin-drop silence in the loft stifled her answer, drawing her glower from the nun to the space past the greasy smoke of the lamps.

At the head of the stairs, a man was clutching his daughter to him- the last ones to climb to safety, a few dozen bodies packed into a wall behind them. He hid her face in his tatty surcoat instead.

She stared. As one, the humans in the loft scattered their eyes, except for the girl, still squirming to free her face from her father's stomach.

Her dagger tipped back; Loghain's officer blinked. She gestured; Alistair slacked his grip. Now their captive's shoulders jerked, a word moving behind his lips. What came instead was another spurt of blood, like a pent-up leak, or a drunk admission left on a tavern bench.

" _Fenedhis_ ," she sighed. "Get up, ye poor wretch; ye can at least put a salve on that today. But mind yer tongue-" he twitched; her knife flipped in her hand, sliding neatly into its sheath at his eye-level- "should ye meet other Dalish on the road. We _all_ have faces like Orlesian carpets. Though we don't all enjoy the comparison."

Thankfully, the man said nothing. The nun took his elbow and bent him upright, whispering directions in his ear. Expert fingers popped the linen wad into his mouth; his lips spasmed dangerously. Alistair tipped his greatsword back to him, hilt-first; he saluted half-heartedly as the officer accepted it and hobbled out the door, walking lopsided from the arrow lodged in his hip. His blade nicked the top of the doorframe; her wolf growled.

"We shall regret this," Morrigan intoned at his back.

" _Banal nadas."_

But the sister was already gesturing to the bards' loft. "Shall we have anothaire song? We could all use something gentle to the ear, no? An' perhaps a round of drinks for these fine souls?" She glanced at the tavern keep; his mustache bristled.

"We've enough 'fine souls' passing through this place lately, Sister Leliana." But his hands were already moving, years of habit dredging up three chipped goblets from under the bar. "And my taps are dry, thanks to them. First the teryn's horde. Then our blighted bann's men following them. Then the mad giant who can't die, and makes folks piss themselves when they pass his cage. They keep turning right back around, as if it's any safer in these parts."

"A stranded qunari," Leliana explained to her, pinching the cups in one hand. "About three weeks ago, he was found in a farmhold not far down the rivaire, after killing the family who once lived there. But he surrendaired- oddly enough- to the templars. We have no way of knowing if he's in possession of his mind, or if he understands our laws. So the Revered Mother left him in a cage outside the village, by the north road, to whatevaire the Maker plans for him."

She glanced at the soldier still on the bar. "Not our fate, I hope?"

The sister chuckled; the bartender didn't. "No, no. Like I said: we know the Dalish well enough. I doubt a cage will change _your_ mind if you decide to grow angry with us." A sideways cock of her head. "Come now; I still have a little elderberry wine from the chantry buttery. Would you help me finish it? In return-" her back was to the barkeep; her auburn eyebrows rose- "I may be able to help you with those hides. I can't tell you how many of us need new shoes by now."

 _I'll doubt half of that._ But her eyes cast around the wrecked floor anyway. With a whiff of musk and cheap ale, the split bag of buckskins rose, dropping over her shoulder again. "'Tis fair to warn ye- I've only one pair of hands to cut shoes or catch kicks. Let's hope the people choose wisely."

"Sounds reasonable."

Morrigan's glare said enough.

They didn't return to the sister's seat by the fire, but righted a bench near the back of the room, just below the minstrels' loft. Leliana tested the tabletop, smiled in apology, and kicked one joint straight. At that, the spell over the tavern cracked. Upstairs, the bagpipes groaned again; the fife trilled, still off-key; a farmer began a litany of swearing as patrons crept down from the second floor. One of the pot-girls eeled out of her friend's grip and through the door, calling for a hay-wain; the other wrinkled her nose, grabbing the dead soldier on the hearth by his wrists. Da'renan curled behind her stool, warm as a resting dragon.

Leliana said nothing until the drum roused again, shivering the lamp above them. "I apologize for interfering, but I couldn't just sit by an' not help." Her stubby flask popped open with a tart, medicine tang. "Aftaire all, it would do none of us any good to cross the Grey Wardens. Would you like some cheese to go with this?"

No one answered; the sister pulled a wry smile. "Oh, just as well- the blue cheese here will give you nightmares. No joke." Blackish wine splashed into four cups. "Biscuits, then?"

"Ye've been waitin' a while fer us?"

"Well… no. Not exactly." A dulcimer chimed overhead. Now a line strung between the nun's brows; she looked just as perplexed at whom she was sitting with. "Could any of us have known that the Grey Wardens survived? Too many young men an' women from here nevaire returned from Ostagar. Even _those_ soldiers were half-ready to run for Denerim; a few more days, an' you would have missed them entirely. But all the same-" her hands twisted her cup around, inky wine circling- "it would be a lie to say I wasn't expecting _something_ to happen."

"All manner of undesirables are runnin' north now. But ye're rather quick, Sister, to take the side of kingslayers."

Leliana's chin jerked up. "I'm not. It's the survivors who write our histories, don't they say? An' this time, I'm glad I'm not Fereldan enough to believe _everything_ that comes from Loghain Mac Tir's herald." The corners of her mouth dipped; a sad, inverted smile. "Let's just say… I know how stories are strung. An' what is being said about you is a fine tale. Though it plays better in the _Grande Royeaux_ Theater than here in Ferelden."

"Oh good. Glad it's not just us." Alistair knocked back his goblet.

Their host turned a gentler look on him. "I know there's little consolation that I- or anyone- can offer aftaire Ostagar. But for what it's worth, you have my silence. An' my assistance for the road ahead. It will be a long journey to quell the Blight with this edict against you; that much, we can tell."

The sister's smile stayed. She glanced at their cups, three out of four untouched, and wondered how strong this bottle was supposed to be.

"You're a tad more presumptuous than others of your cloth, _Sister._ " The silk noose in Morrigan's reply spoke for both of them.

Leliana's hands opened, apologetic; cracks of blood still lined her fingers. "I wasn't born in the clergy, you know. Some of us had more… colorful lives before we joined. An' I can do still more than fight uninformed men."

"Such as?" She dropped her hand over Alistair's cup; her comrade relented.

"Blending in; listening in. Encouraging a soldier to share their story, with or without a warm bottle of wine." Her lips quirked, amusedly, at them. "Catching tales on the air, an' adding to them. An' in an emergency, a little, ah… redistribution of wealth. From those who wouldn't miss it, to those who would."

"That must have been an eventful career ye had, back in Orlais."

"…Perhaps. The Chantry offers safety an' succor to all those who seek it." For a beat, she dropped her eyes, rubbing the crimson crust off one nail; the modesty left her voice. "Sadly, even it has its limits: the regent is sure to sanction whatevaire abbey opens its doors to your Order. With the end of a noose, in this country. So-" a simple shrug; her eyes lifted again and smiled- "it will cause the least harm all around if I joined _you_ on the road _._ "

Upstairs, the bagpiper started a new song, whistling sharp through a bad reed. She remembered to pull a ripped buckskin out of her satchel, draping it over the table's edge. "…With those skills, ye could have left Lothering a long while back. Found a good purse to pay yer way, or a patron with a better name than ours." Her question stretched low and flat under the lilt of the pipe. "So why linger this long? Then get up to volunteer against the Blight, of all things?"

"I-" This time, Leliana faltered. Her gaze sank into her cup. "That is a story I'm not sure I can share."

Deliberately, her hand tilted to the bottle between them. "Try. Fer our sakes."

The sister's lips compressed into a curve that was and wasn't a smile. Obligingly, she lifted her goblet, chased down some wine, and meditated on the darkened rim. "…All I ask then is that you listen, an' refrain from saying anything until I reach the end of my tale. I know what I know, an' if you'll judge me insane… well at least judge me able in other areas, yes?" A pause; the lamplight leeched the brightness out of her eyes, leaving them the color of fog. "A few weeks ago… I had a dream. An' not an ordinary one: it happened the night the teryn passed through, his herald announcing that the darkspawn have claimed the field an' the king at Ostagar. In my dream, I found myself standing on a bitter-cold ridge, the sea an' the country spread below, all the way to the gelid sheen of the wastelands beyond the Korcari Wilds. An' then out of the southern horizon came this… eclipse, this unnatural night, this darkness smothering the land below. Like a cloak- or the maw of some dread beast- was being drawn right over the firmament. The sky became a paring of itself; a nail-thin scratch of light in the dark, an' when that vanished too, I… I fell. Or maybe I jumped. An' the darkness drew me in."

Overhead, a lutist plucked a pendulous gigge.

When she kept her look, Leliana relented with a shrug. "Truthfully, it could have been the Blight I dreamt. But that in itself is not extraordinary- it's what happened the morning aftaire. While masses were prepared for King Cailan, I stepped into the gardens for air. An' there I saw something… inexplicable. The dead rosebush in the corner of the plot- that gnarled, gray thing everyone gave up on years ago- had _flowered._ That morning, there was a single, beautiful rose budding on its topmost branch…." She broke off, her gaze drifting past; plum-painted lips shivered into a smile. "…I was in awe. It was as though the Maker was extending His hand to say: "Even in the midst of this darkness, there is hope an' beauty. Have faith."

Morrigan's eyebrow dropped again, stony. Alistair muttered from her right: "At least she didn't mention voices."

That broke the sister's spell; her cup came down with a smart rap. " _As I said,_ you are not obliged to believe me. But trust that I am willing to fight the same battles as you." Her chin jerked to the rest of the tavern: around the bar milled a small throng, red-eyed and dulled with dust; the tavern-keep crossed his arms before his taps. Through the door, one barmaid stopped, a soldier drooping from her shoulder; a Chasind screamed expletives at the newly-dead on the street. "I pray for these people, but the horde won't stop _here._ It will march into the heart of this country, fallowing fields, destroying everything we know, until the regent musters another army to check its progress. An' even then, will that be enough?"

Her comrade's stool creaked as it twisted. Leliana shook her head, answering her own question. "The First Blight waged for over a century before your Order emerged to slay its archdemon. An' three times over, that story repeated itself. No matter how many thousands of soldiers were committed to the field, no Blight was evaire won without the Grey Wardens at the helm. No regiment in Thedas knows the darkspawn as well as yours; no one else is better equipped to break them. Now once again, in this age, our hopes rest in you. But does your new king put much stock in history? Unlikely, if he's so willing to write it out."

Alistair stopped fidgeting. The nun noticed; a steely glint pricked her eyes as they found hers. "I know now that my place is not in the cloister; not aftaire this summer. An' you will need all the help you can get aftaire Ostagar. Call it Providence or no, we've found each other here; we've seen that we can aid each other. Let me come with you, please. In these dire times, what good can we accomplish by fixing on our differences again, when the south is already on fire?"

The sister's gaze touched the tattooed lianas curling around her eyes. She didn't turn away.

"…Even less than usual," she replied. "I don't suppose ye can lend us some spare clothes, then?"

Her host's eyebrows rebounded; her fingers fell from her cup.

Morrigan swiveled on her stool. Alistair followed, then burst into a hasty laugh. "Look, Líadan, when I said back at the fort that I'd do the Remigold in a dress-"

"-'Twould be a lot more entertainin' than doing the Dalish jig, my friend. 'Tis mostly runnin'."

Across the table, their new recruit's lips twitched into a smile, and grew. "Yes… yes, I see your point. You _are_ a rathaire memorable group." Her hand flitted to her mouth, masking her grin, then dropped the next instant, folding in a grateful reverence. "Your trust is not misplaced; thank you, Warden. Now there's certainly more than we can carry when we evacuate this place; the Revered Mother shouldn't miss a templar's uniform, an' a chanter's robe or two. Although-" Polite silence ate her words; her eyes dropped to the tattoos on Líadan's fingers, stitched with three lines of curling arrowheads.

The Dalish ranger stretched them on the table, answered with a lopsided smile. "-Nothing my size, I take it? No matter, Sister. Should anyone ask, I'm yer heathen trail-guide, one or two steps away from conversion." Her fingers crooked, half-joking. "Fer now, ye can say we're savin' my soul with silver. 'Tis workin' quite well."

Another beat; the nun decided on a laugh. "You won't have to be alone. There's a dwarven trader who arrived at the chantry with his son, the other day; they were looking for caravan guards aftaire losing their last one on the road here. They won't say no to a Dalish guide either. Or a few well-paying priests."

"Better than a tavern joke, I guess." Alistair lifted his cup in a toast. "So a templar, a witch, a wolf, a sister, a Dalish, and two dwarves walk into a pub-"

"-And they lose one fool in the fight. Pity." But Morrigan's jab lacked her usual heart; her amber eyes fixed on Líadan with a question.

She didn't answer it. "Will ye be able to meet us tonight outside the village?" Her wrist flicked expertly as she lifted her cup, swirling the country wine; her nose sifted through the dark tart of elderberries, mellowed with wild honey. "The woods seem the safer option fer us to camp; then we'll be off again at first light tomorrow."

"That would be best, yes. It'll also give me time to take my leave of the Revered Mother, an' finish my rounds in the chantry cellar- we've turned it to a sanitarium, given what happened south. So many refugees still arrive each day, some even with the Blight illness. How shall I find you later?"

"Alistair will fetch ye." Overhead, lute and dulcimer rippled unheard; the bagpipes droned pitch-dark; the fife trilled fast to save it, bright and black notes grazing across each other. Da'renan bristled. She tipped her goblet in a minute toast. "Welcome to our company, Sister Leliana." Her mouth closed without a smile over the rim.

* * *

Three stories up, the chantry's bell struck six, rapping at the roof of the summer sky. The stars didn't reply; swallows winged unseen from the nook of the bell-spire to the splash of the watermill.

It was darker outside than in the nave. _Because even if flaming Andraste Herself knocked on the chapel door, I wouldn't bunk with the Blight-struck._ Morning closed over him in a single shadow as he eased down the chantry steps, brushed awake by the smells of hay and hops, woodsmoke and midden water. He blinked at the rush-lights dotting the village bridge, then glanced up.

From one corner to the next, the dawn sky was steeped in gray, stars blotted out by haze still blowing in from the south. A sliver of sun cindered on the eastern ridge. Char hung in the air like a knife to the palate.

It hadn't changed for three weeks.

 _Move, move, move- don't stop to think of what's coming this way._

His rushlight bobbed over the cobblestones ahead of his boots, burning like a will-o-wisp. Lothering unfolded in the gloom, slow and sluggish with sleep, as he followed its one road over the bridge- the mosquito buzz of the brook; fresh thatch; the malty reek of refugee tents, a child hacking himself out of a doze; the tang of cider smearing the tavern yard. His teeth promptly ground against his gag, that rich, wet ache filling his mouth again.

 _Maferath missed them when He walked the field._ In the dark, the Dalish woman's face sprung clear before him: a pair of unhuman eyes, murky-gray and tapered at the corners; swarthy skin marked like a bandit. _After Ostagar, only the Black City is bad enough to take in the Wardens._

Hounds yipped at the ashy air; fences rattled as he passed.

Teryn Loghain had been as precise as an apothecarist when they drew up the sketches. "Only two Wardens I know of weren't on the field proper. A tow-headed lad with hazel eyes, hair cropped short and sticking up at the front. Big, but don't let that fool you: he's a pup under the armor. Do him in first, but watch for the other one-" his square-tipped hand, still a farmer's son's, tapped the second face on the cheap paper- "the Dalish woman with the pet wolf and the recurve bow. Dark, more-or-less young, with gray eyes and a long braid. Can't miss her with that candleflame tattooed between her brows. If she gets away, you'll never track her again until you feel an arrow in your back. Take no chances, gentlemen: every one of these Wardens entered Ostagar with our king's blood in mind. Ferelden herself is their enemy."

 _And the scaffold is the last home she'll offer them._ His cuirass rasped against his neck, flaking and sore, like a shirt of fresh nettles; no matter how many times he beat it against the washer's rack, the darkspawn reek still clung. _I'll be there when they're hung heels-up, and choking on their entrails._

Past the village well, smelling dank and green in the square. Under the sagging birchwood arch, its dead lantern crowning the street; now, baked dirt crunched under his boots. On the shoulder of the road, cottars' huts gaped dark and tongue-less: the first homes emptied as its tenants fled into the village proper, or out. Lothering's dogs keened without break as he drew abreast of the iron cage; a thick, animal musk bit his nose to warn him of what it held.

The giant was silent this morning. He wondered if he finally died in the night, parched after countless days of heathen hymns. He wondered again how long they had both been here.

From this speck on the map, it was less than two weeks on a good horse to Denerim. But that was without accounting for the traffic, the panic, the lurking highwaymen and plague on the roads as the country disintegrated at news of the king's death, and the darkspawn's relentless advance. _Then there's the tiny detail of how I don't have a bleeding horse anymore._ Again, his teeth bit into the gag; another fresh well of pain bloomed on his tongue. _These Blighted rustics took every one of our steeds when they carted my men out._ Now his only hope for reaching the capital lay with that tiny dwarven caravan- leaving with a few chanters first thing this morning, or so he heard. He'd offer them his blade, and his confirmed service under Teryn Loghain, before the same idea could strike a farmer with a pitchfork.

The road now sank through pasture; his pace dropped, then stopped altogether. Grass whispered unseen along his greaves, sweetened with clover. Ahead, the windmill loomed silent, less a shape than an immense suggestion in the smoky sky. Beyond rose the honeycomb arcs of the Imperial Highway, white stone reluctantly catching fire from the low-burning sun.

There wasn't a single lamp on the road. He blinked, squinted with disquiet.

For a heartbeat, the village dogs stopped baying. And then he caught the downy press of turf at his back; the wet vapor of breath, hung low to the ground.

His ribs clenched; his blade whisked off his shoulder, arcing down and across as he spun- too slow. It hacked into dirt; the stitches in his back wept fire. His rushlight sizzled into the grass, a tongue of flame lashing up.

There was a wolf crouched in the pasture with him, black fur melting into the delayed dawn.

The bloodied gag strangled his yell. His sword wrenched free of the ground; flakes of dirt tumbled loose as he turned it to the beast.

It was nearly as tall as the Warden's wolf, the long grass not even touching its flanks. Amber eyes watched him with canine contempt as it sidestepped his torch. Pale tufts of straw rose with its mane, shots of blonde in black.

 _Has that thing been sleeping_ in _the village?_ His back pricked with sweat, stitches stinging.

Behind him, open meadow rolled on to the Highway- a suicide run against this creature. He pivoted again, circling back to the cottars' road and the dull hubbub of Lothering. The wolf followed, like an obscene shadow. Fire licked the grass, blades twisting and crumpling into its maw. In the growing glare of his torch, the wolf's muzzle dripped; he remembered, again.

Too many of these things had stalked the Korcari Wilds, and further: felling wounded dogs, horses, scouts, stranded caravans as they all pelted north away from the darkspawn. He didn't want to know where its pack might be. Or if it had none, and no longer cared.

The village slept; its hounds wailed. He tried a muffled shout, wrenched in half by his gag; a warning lunge, jerky and arthritic, his sword jabbing forth at the beast's skull. That long muzzle parted: two-inch fangs flashed in answer, gummed with gristle. He took nine quick steps back.

Suddenly his heel struck iron; he jumped. The hot rank of the giant's cage rolled over him, slow and sulfurous like an alchemist's furnace. And he knew, without turning, that that thing inside was only just alive.

Right then, an indescribable sound racked the dawn: a liquid howl that rolled down his hearing, swelling, then bursting into paroxysms of liquor-dark laughter. His throat seized; his eyes jerked up.

The grass was rising higher around the wolf. Or- his eyes tightened with horror- it was melting into the field, sinking down to elbows and knees, and more. Sooty fur slipped off into the grass, soft white flesh surfacing; the spine bowed, coiled short, full hips and shoulders unfurling; two dark-nippled breasts rose back from impossible distances down the belly; the tail had vanished. And the face that turned to meet his smiled with human lips, painted near-black from her last meal.

"Some lessons are learnt only once, fool."

Something struck his back: the shriek of iron waking, hinges coming loose. A deep, acrid musk rolled over him as a mammoth hand closed around his neck. Fingers like fire-prods met at his windpipe; the thumb shifted against his ear, bending his head sideways with all the ease of a man picking up a cockerel from the yard.

His feet kicked over grass, breath choking; his blade convulsed, jerked backward like a carter's switch. It hacked into patched linen, and a mass of shoulder that bled but didn't flinch.

" _With_ haste, Qunari. You have but an hour before your hosts remember you."

He had time to wonder one thing, as black spots flashed white before his eyes, vertebrae popping. _Why_ _did the cage door_ swing _open, instead of buckling out?_

A crack that split through his hearing; a wet pain shearing his throat. He didn't feel the drop as the giant surrendered his grip.


End file.
